The dawn of the year 2000 brought in an invention which revolutionized the whole way the world perceives communication - the mobile. Of course, it was known as an invention since long before, but with the new century, its popularity and reach amongst the masses gained momentum. With time, this invention slowly became necessity and now has become as equal as a ‘family member’ in almost all houses. It is like a tail following the owner leaving behind a trail in the form of a ‘ring tone’.
The tunes with which one uses to ‘reach’ his mobile became the ‘face’ of that particular person. Ring tones, the new identity of the person in a crowd evidently become an inevitable part of a person and his image in the society at large. Everyone thereby, wanted to make a mark in the public with his / her ‘voice’ of the ring tone. Slowly, this small invisible craze made such an impact in the day to day life that it has become a usual affair for the human being.
Changing ring tones, exchanging ring tones, setting unique ring tones is a trend of sorts amongst the youth and the mobile users in general. In addition, the money ensnarers ‘sell’ this invisible product in the market. It proves to be an interesting and an unsual marketing gimmick that a product not visible to the eyes is being marketed so extensively.
An interesting fact or a field of study is what drives a person to choose a particular ring tone. Has it to do with his psyche or with the mental condition? With the changing moods, one prefers to change his/her ring tones. Some like to keep it aloud, some keep unusual unheard songs as their uniqueness, some prefer to keep it on silent, perhaps like to keep a low profile in the crowd?
This indiscernible ‘item for consumption’ is up for grabs and has made such a presence felt in the market at large that now movies are coming up with tunes which can be promote along with the music. Several movies come up with these ‘forced’ tunes/hymns to target the aficionado.
I have these unusual experiences as far as these ringtones are concerned and have come across several ‘matchless’ choices as ringtones.
I have met people with really good taste in selecting a ring tone, which are really soothing to hear and also can stun you several times with the way it sounds. Some like to keep it as professional as possible and can be boring sometimes. Some like to have a really absurd choices for the music that I wonder how can someone keep ring tones like ‘pardesi pardesi’ (par-desi hoon???). Some people are bizarrely patriotic and their ‘patriotism’ in the form of ring tones suddenly springs up from no where , ‘Mere Desh ki Dharti’ and ‘Vande Mataram’ suddenly bounces up from nowhere and that too at some strange situations . Devotional people are the best of the lot. I attended one meeting, a professional meet and everyone was discussing an issue. Suddenly in the middle of a heated discussion, someone’s devotional trait jumped up and that too aloud.’ Tum hi ho mere swami’ and ‘ Jai mata’ ringtones abruptly changes the ambience into a devotional nature. But the ringtone ‘nature’ of one office boy in my workplace takes the cake for me. He possesses this uncanny knack of getting weirdest, wackiest and extremely unheard ( read useless) tracks as ring tones. I refer to those ones as ‘bang’ tones. ’tujhe pyar kaise' and some really unheard songs are part of his daily identity. Moreover, he boasts of these hit songs by keeping maximum volume, thus the whole office gets to know of his hard hitting presence.
Same ‘ring tone theory’ applies to the other facet the mobile carries i.e the text messages. The same funda of eerie message tones also make a mark of the person’s messagial identity. Ringtone like sound of a coin dropping, a click, a gun shot, a rising alarm are just some of the message tones that alerts the person of a message.
Ultimately, whatever tone a person’s carries, one thing is for sure – we all are inevitably ‘ring-toned’.
